chuck ross

Flu season will forever remind me of my father. “That’s an odd association,” I can almost hear you saying. “Was he particularly prone to the illness? Did a particularly bad case of it hit him hard?” Well, no to both those questions –aside from all his chronic conditions, Dad was generally healthy as a horse. The connection resides in his lifelong refusal, in the face of nurses’ please and doctors’ dire warnings, to ever get vaccinated. Those conversations arose at …

One goes through so many emotions as a caregiver– fear, sadness, anger, joy, surprise, just to name a few- but the one emotion I probably felt most often was simply, overwhelmed. That single feeling of being out of control and always on my guard amplified whatever other emotion I might have been experiencing at any given time. It wasn’t really until Dad already had spent six months or so in his nearby nursing home that I finally learned how to …

You may have seen some coverage of the report released this past fall on the growing importance of caregivers in providing help that would require a registered nurse if the patient were in a hospital. “Home Alone: Family Caregivers Providing Complex Chronic Care” was jointly researched and written by AARP and the United Hospital Fund. Managing prescription and non-prescription medications took up the biggest chunk of these surrogate nurses’ time. But more than a third of those providing what otherwise …

Taking care of elderly parents can raise any number of personal emotions for children who find they aren’t getting any younger themselves. More than once, I found myself – single, with no children of my own – wondering to whom I would turn at age 86, when living on my own might be proving to be just a bit more than I could handle. Fortunately, assistive technology is advancing at a rapid clip, and it could play a big role …

In my last post, I ranted a bit about the perceived invisibility of men in caregiving discussions. This time, I want to turn that camera around and take a look at how men can sometimes be their own worst enemies when taking on a caregiving role. The urge many of us have to step in, analyze and act can make the experience much more difficult than it needs to be (believe me, I learned the hard way). Over time, I …

As a journalist and former caregiver (that’s me with my Dad in the photo, during his time living with me in Cape Cod), I pay attention to how caregiving is handled in the media. And, as a man, I often note how rarely men are mentioned in what little coverage caregivers receive. A recent radio piece brought this point home, almost humorously, questioning why male caregivers seem so invisible, without any apparent recognition of the media’s own lack of attention to the question’s possible answers. …